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Symposium-Commercial Vehicles and LOWER-OCTANE FUELS 420088

SERVICE station men throughout the nation may be called upon to serve “gasoline cocktails” to the drivers of trucks and buses essential to the war effort, it is suggested by Mr. Hubner. Owing to “octane stripping” and larger defense requirements of tetraethyl lead supplies, Mr. Hubner says, the quality of regular-grade gasoline will almost certainly decline, but the potential loss in power and performance of most heavy-duty equipment could be made up by mixing a “cocktail” of regular and premium-grade fuels at the service station to meet the needs of the particular equipment.

Although most refiners could meet the deficiency in octane number caused by stripping base stocks of high-octane fractions for aviation fuels by added concentrations of tetraethyl lead, the author emphasizes that allocation of raw materials had limited the supply of this antiknock agent. Present indications, he says, are that tetraethyl lead available for regular-grade gasolines probably will be sufficient only to give such gasolines an average of about 72 octane number. Premium-grade fuels will continue to be produced to supply the needs of the Army, since an 80-octane fuel has been specified for use in all of its mechanized equipment.